This is My Forties

Emotion overwhelmed me suddenly, While eating on a bench by the sea. There next to me was a heron Standing proudly While eating on a rock by the sea. He was me. My connection restored my peace. The waves are me The sand is me We move We stay We exist We change... I could feel the past in me The Natives fishing by the sea I could feel the future before me Time was gone because Time is wrong We exist eternally

It's not the going that does it Not the performance Or the gulping down painful flexes of heart and throat That foreshadow my future. It's not the interaction that does it I fare well in those. I'm witty and funny, respectful and endearing It's the after that does it When I'm alone and still And can finally feel And the reel hits rewind And I see myself Exaggerated Awkward and out of place Tripping on words Misinterpreting, interrupting, sweating Acting a fool Never shutting up And I hate this tape But it's already made I hit rewind And I hit play Rewind and play... can't Rewind and play... stop But, no it's not the them  that does it, It's always been me. Wrongfully assuming I can see how they see.

What would happen if I wrote Just sat here and let the ink flow. Shapes of letters becoming words on pages... What would be said? What's in my head? "Be brave" she said Again?! What's so brave about this? Impermanence Why when thinking of life's shortness Do I yield to fear and not Fearlessness Minimize, minimal, temporary, temporal Time is brief, short, struts and frets It should be empowering to realize it But I can't I see time as a death sentence, My life as a struggle to overcome myself. I want to be liberated from the responsibility Of becoming worthwhile in the blink of an eye. Who is this who owns me? The biggest bullies are within. "Be brave" she said So I publish it.